Zotac ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus: Redefining the Small Form Factor PC
by Ganesh T S on April 11, 2012 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- ZOTAC
- Fusion
- HTPC
The other important aspect for HTPCs is performance with network streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix. The ZBOX Nano XS AD11 Plus comes with a GbE port, so one should never be found wanting in terms of bandwidth. The bundled support for Wi-Fi serves as a backup if the unit is placed somewhere without wired access. We tested out both YouTube and Netflix with our standard test streams used in previous reviews.
The good news is that GPU acceleration is attempted and enabled in both Silverlight and Adobe Flash. The unfortunate aspect is that there are some CPU intensive parts which result in dropped frames.
With Netflix, we started out with a 3.6 Mbps video / 64 kbps audio stream. However, the plug-in seemed to sense the high CPU load and automatically shifted to lower bitrate streams (as can be seen in the screenshot above). This is despite the fact that GPU acceleration was attempted and enabled!
YouTube is a slightly different story. The CPU load is not that high, but it periodically loads up one of the cores fully. At 100% CPU loading on one of the cores, there were visible dropped frames in the playback.
I had encouraging words for the ZBOX at the end of the previous section, but, with OTT streaming, there is no way to put a positive spin on things. Either the drivers have to step up, or the plug-ins have to be optimized. Either way, the ZBOX can't be recommended right now for streaming high definition videos despite the presence of GPU acceleration.
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tipoo - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Do any exist in this form factor, or are the joints proprietary? For something like this a large passively cooled heatsink would be nice.DanNeely - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I don't think there's room for anything much larger. You've only got 1/4" minus the thickness of the baseplate in additional vertical space. You don't have room to expand sideways either, the area oposite to the USB/Ethernet/etc connectors is taken up by the daughterboard with the audio/Sd/eSata headers.gamoniac - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I have a slightly larger ZBox Nano AD10 with E350. This thing runs hot. I don't passively cooled heat sink would work. Just today, mine shut down again while my wife was using it just for web surfing; this is a long running issue since I had this unit. The small form factor was cute at first but the problem became annoying when it does not do what you bought it for.While it's good to push for smaller form factor, it is even more important that Zotac makes sure that they put out a product that works. On that note, does anyone want to buy a fairly new ZBox Nano AD10 with E350? :(
gamoniac - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
PS: My GPU temp is high as Ganesh's screenshots show in this article. CPU is hot too during normal usage. I even threw in an SSD but that didn't seem to help keeping the temperature down much, so I swapped the SSD out to use somewhere else worthwhile.Matias - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I agree, I also have an AD10 and it runs waaay to hot!Samus - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
For the same price you could build a Pentium G620, Intel Z68 mATX, 4GB DDR3, 128GB Intel SSD, in a SilverStone ML03B chassis that'll fit in beautifully with any receiver, dvd player or other media equipment.It'd be vastly superior in every way. Ridiculously faster, more expandable, quieter, cooler, lower power consumtion (when used with 80+ Bronze PSU) and unfortunately for Zotac, infinitely more reliable.
ZBox Nano's are notorious for overheating, and other than putting them in front of an air conditioner, there is no real way to fix it with such a design. The reviews on Newegg and Amazon have a number of people discussing the shortcomings of this unit with few people saying they'd buy one again.
As usual, DIY trumps all. When a company finds an economical+superior alternative, then its worth AT reviewing it.
Matias - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
This DIY setup is like 5 times larger than the Zotacs, keep that in mind. I also build DIY desktops, but for HTPC the small form factor of the Zotac is still unrivaled.DanNeely - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The Silverstone case Samus suggested is actually 65 times larger (by volume). It's smallest dimension is the same size as the Zotac's largest...cjs150 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
the problem is that the design is not optimised for fanless operation. What is needed is an after market case which would be a heavy duty heatsink (Hfx, Streacom do these but for full sized mini-itx form). It looks as though even the E-450 just does not have enough power to do the obvious job (as an HTPC) correctly.At the moment the better option is to wait for Trinity ULV or bite bullet and go for a proper mini-ITX board.
Maybe if Intel actually did some proper design of an IGP and fixed the frame rate refresh option that would be best - an i3 but with an AMD IGP is the perfect combination
Zink - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
That mobo sure is cute. Even if it isn't that useful, someone needs to keep pushing new form factors.